1. Wasco County History After Hours in The Dalles, Feb. 28, RSVP

Wasco County Historical Society

300 W. 13th Street The Dalles, Oregon 97058

AN INVITATION

“HISTORY AFTER HOURS”

THE WASCO COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

INVITES YOU TO AN INFORMAL GATHERING TO CELEBRATE THE HISTORICAL ORGANIZATIONS IN AND AROUND WASCO COUNTY We all have a common interest in the history of this area. Let’s get to know each other and share information in an informal setting.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016

RIVERENZA 401 E. 10TH STREET, THE DALLES

4:30-6:30 p.m.

Appetizers, coffee, tea and water will be served and we will have a cake to celebrate Oregon’s Birthday(just a few days late!). No host bar. Riverenza staff will be there to sell wine, etc.

Each organization is asked to share a brief update for their upcoming year. Try not to exceed 5 minutes. Bring along brochures, etc. to exchange. Let’s make connections and work together to keep the history of The Dalles and Wasco County an important part of the quality of life in this area!

RSVP by Feb. 12th to Jean at jkverc@charter.net or 541-296-5785 or 541-980-7453. Please leave a message if no answer.

Dr. Robert Boyd, research anthropologist at Portland State University and author of “People of The Dalles” tells the story of “Rev. Henry K.W. Perkins: Forgotten Wascopam Missionary” at the Original Wasco Co. Courthouse Saturday, Feb. 6. Perkins’ 1838-1844 journals document the founding of Wascopam Mission (pictured above) and daily life of the native people of the area. The program begins at 1:30 p.m. The program is first in the 2016 Regional History Forum series that takes place Saturdays during February. There is a TV monitor on the ground floor of the 1859 courthouse to serve those unable to climb the stairs. Coffee and cookies will be served after the program.

4. School Immunization Exclusion Day is Wednesday, February 17

Oregon law requires that all children attending public and private schools, preschools, Head Start and certified child care facilities, have up-to-date immunization documentation (or have an exemption) to remain in school.

The goal is to make sure children are fully protected against vaccine-preventable diseases and can go to school in a safe and healthy environment. Immunization is a safe way to help protect your family, your school and your community, against disease.

The date for exclusion this year is Wednesday, February 17, 2016.

Each year North Central Public Health District sends a letter to the parents of children that need additional immunizations, indicating what additional immunizations a child needs. These letters will be sent by the first of February.

In the past, North Central Public Health District has received a large number of walk-in clients needing to be immunized during exclusion. Please note that due to budget reductions, our walk-in hours have been greatly reduced to: Wednesday and Thursday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Parents seeking immunization for their child should contact their primary care provider, their pharmacist (if the child is over 11 years of age), or North Central Public Health District during our new limited walk-in hours.

You can also call 211 for information about where to go for immunizations in your area.

Last year there were a few changes, please keep in mind:

Hepatitis A vaccine requirement: The hepatitis A vaccine, which protects against a communicable viral infection, is a two-dose series now required for children18 months through sixth grade.

Nonmedical exemption process: Parents wanting a new nonmedical exemption for their child must provide documentation that they have received education about the benefits and risks of immunization on a Vaccine Education Certificate. Parents can get education from a health care practitioner or from watching an online vaccine education module. More information about the new process is available at http://www.healthoregon.org/vaccineexemption

On Wednesday, February 17th, children will not be able to attend school or child care if their records on file show missing immunizations. No child will be turned away from North Central Public Health District due to a parent’s inability to pay for required vaccines; however, please note that our (newly limited) office hours for walk-in appointments are Wednesday and Thursday afternoons only. Additional information on school immunizations can be found at the Immunization Program website at http://www.healthoregon.org/imm.

Give President Obama credit. His Iran nuclear deal may be disastrous but the packaging was brilliant. The near-simultaneous prisoner exchange was meant to distract from last Saturday’s official implementation of the sanctions-lifting deal. And it did. The Republicans concentrated almost all their fire on the swap sideshow.

And in denouncing the swap, they were wrong. True, we should have made the prisoner release a precondition for negotiations. But that pre-emptive concession was made long ago (among many others, such as granting Iran in advance the right to enrich uranium). The remaining question was getting our prisoners released before we gave away all our leverage upon implementation of the nuclear accord. We did.

Republicans say: We shouldn’t negotiate with terror states. But we do and we should. How else do you get hostages back? And yes, of course negotiating encourages further hostage taking. But there is always something to be gained by kidnapping Americans. This swap does not affect that truth one way or the other.

And here, we didn’t give away much. The seven released Iranians, none of whom has blood on his hands, were sanctions busters (and a hacker), and sanctions are essentially over now. The slate is clean.

But how unfair, say the critics. We released prisoners duly convicted in a court of law. Iran released perfectly innocent, unjustly jailed hostages.

Yes, and so what? That’s just another way of saying we have the rule of law, they don’t. It doesn’t mean we abandon our hostages. Natan Sharansky was a prisoner of conscience who spent eight years in the Gulag on totally phony charges. He was exchanged for two real Soviet spies. Does anyone think we should have said no?

The one valid criticism of the Iranian swap is that we left one, perhaps two, Americans behind and unaccounted for. True. But the swap itself was perfectly reasonable. And cleverly used by the administration to create a heartwarming human interest story to overshadow a rotten diplomatic deal, just as the Alan Gross release sweetened a Cuba deal that gave the store away to the Castro brothers.

The real story of Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016 — “Implementation Day” of the Iran deal — was that it marks a historic inflection point in the geopolitics of the Middle East. In a stroke, Iran shed almost four decades of rogue-state status and was declared a citizen of good standing of the international community, open to trade, investment and diplomacy. This, without giving up, or even promising to change, its policy of subversion and aggression. This, without having forfeited its status as the world’s greatest purveyor of terrorism.

Overnight, it went not just from pariah to player but from pariah to dominant regional power, flush with $100 billion in unfrozen assets and virtually free of international sanctions. The oil trade alone will pump tens of billions of dollars into its economy. The day after Implementation Day, President Hassan Rouhani predicted 5 percent growth — versus the contracting, indeed hemorrhaging, economy in pre-negotiation 2012 and 2013.

On Saturday, the Iranian transport minister announced the purchase of 114 Airbuses from Europe. This inaugurates a rush of deals binding European companies to Iran, thoroughly undermining Obama’s pipedream of “snapback sanctions” if Iran cheats.

Cash-rich, reconnected with global banking and commerce, and facing an Arab world collapsed into a miasma of raging civil wars, Iran has instantly become the dominant power of the Middle East. Not to worry, argued the administration. The nuclear opening will temper Iranian adventurism and empower Iranian moderates.

The opposite is happening. And it’s not just the ostentatious, illegal ballistic missile launches; not just Iran’s president reacting to the most puny retaliatory sanctions by ordering his military to accelerate the missile program; not just the videotaped and broadcast humiliation of seized U.S. sailors.

Look at what the mullahs are doing at home. Within hours of “implementation,” the regime disqualified 2,967 of roughly 3,000 moderate candidates from even running in parliamentary elections next month. And just to make sure we got the point, the supreme leader reiterated that Iranian policy — aggressively interventionist and immutably anti-American — continues unchanged.

In 1938, the morning after Munich, Europe woke up to Germany as the continent’s dominant power. Last Sunday, the Middle East woke up to Iran as the regional hegemon, with a hand — often predominant — in the future of Syria, Yemen, Iraq, the Gulf Arab states and, in time, in the very survival of Israel.

And we’re arguing over an asymmetric hostage swap.

6. Links

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America… …

Miller Island – Miller Island Closure 2010 Miller Island is closed to overnight camping, open fires, and metal detecting. A closure order has been placed on these activities and is enforceable by fines.